Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times, known in Europe as Enchanted Folk and the School of Wizardry and in Japan as Tongari Boushi to Mahou no 365 Nichi (とんがりボウシと魔法の 365にち, lit. "365 Days of Pointy Hats and Magic") is a fantasy adventure and life simulation game for the Nintendo DS where players are tasked with attending classes in a Magic Academy, to learn the mysteries of magic and the art of casting spells, while building relationships with other students. As well as doing the general sort of "chill out" things one does, you know--buying clothes, gardening, playing the saxophone, hanging out with your best friend the anthropomorphic cupcake.
Of course, being that this world is magical, there's more to it than the sort of usual life-simmy things. At certain times, known as "Mystery Time," the magical world and the spirit world cross over, and the world is flooded with mysterious creatures, plants, and events. And in order to become a really great wizard, you'll also have to help the various magical creatures who cross into the "real" world with their various problems.
Has a sequel geared up for release, in which you have to run a shop as well as do your schooling duties.
This game features examples of:
- An Interior Designer Is You: Not only can you decorate all the dorms, but you can also furnish the garden on the roof with plants and furniture.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: There are 12 houses in your town, but generally only 11 residents.
- Animate Inanimate Object: As mentioned under Cartoon Creature, some of the students and townsfolk are these.
- Artificial Atmospheric Actions: You can sometimes tell what they're talking about by reading the small bubbles over their head.
- Boys Love/Girls Love: While you can normally only be "Best Friends" with members of your own sex, it is possible to achieve a relationship others call "bound by a strong connection", which is implicitly this.
- Camp Gay: Roley the hairdresser.
- Cartoon Creature: Some of your fellow students and townspeople are Funny Animals, such as bears, cats, and sheep. Others are... other things, like plants, fruit, desserts, and goodness knows what else. One of the standard NPCs, Piquard, is a light bulb.
- Chasing Your Tail: The "Captain Dot" mini-game requires you to attack him from behind after he tries to attack you.
- Christmas Cake: Whenever you visit Limelight by yourself, Marcy will tease you about "not ending up like [her]." Also, if the conversations are anything to go by, Ms. Strawe is the same way.
- Combinatorial Explosion: Your chances of figuring out a spell on your own without looking in a guide or going to class are very, very tiny given the amount of magic runes available.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: When you fight Captain Dot, you defeat him with an enormous lightning bolt spell you can't use anywhere else. Even the "lightning" spell you eventually get is fairly tame in comparison.
- Justified: Mr Oakley explains that the more evil the target is the more powerful the lighting spell becomes.
- Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: The "Human-Faced Fish" found only in Mystery Time has a Moai statue for a face.
- Far Side Island: The Island. Although it is larger than usual, having enough room to comfortably run around, there's still only one tree there. It is where Captain Dot hides out, though.
- Fartillery: Yes, you can learn a spell to make people fart. It also makes ghosts fart and launch themselves into the air, never to be seen again.
- Fishing Minigame
- Flying Broomstick: Broomsticks are the transportation du jour in this world, of course. Or at the very least, staves with one flared end are. Amusingly, even the "Taxi Cab" that takes you to the Island is shaped like an enormous "broom."
- Follow the Leader: Yeah, OK, it's essentially a riff on Animal Crossing. But one wonders why it took so long for someone to take a stab at it.
- Fungus Humongous: Fungi Forest.
- Gay Option: Sort of, since it is possible to have a "bound by a strong connection" relationship with a same-sex classmate. Other students treat this relationship as romantic.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Not only is there bucketloads of Ho Yay and Les Yay, but hairdresser Roley is UnAmbiguously Gay. It's possible to have a conversation with him at Limelight where he talks about meeting the "man of his dreams."
- Green Aesop: The "Mokele-Mbembe" mystery has the titular creature become a sludgy, frightening beast because people were dumping trash in the river. After it's over, all your classmates discuss how they should take better care of the environment.
- Ho Yay: Most likely a glitch: Characters will sometimes talk about how they heard about two characters of the same gender sitting together or going shopping and will imply that they were dating.
- Taken to hilarious levels in one famous review of a guy who played the original Japanese version: He was seen watering flowers by a jock-ish character who proceeded to act shocked and didn't know he was "That Way". The rumor spread like wildfire. No one outright said he was gay, but dang did they ever imply it.
- Idol Singer: Some types of your classmates want to become them. Or even believe they are!
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals
- Interspecies Romance: Unless your town has one of the rare "human-looking" NPCs (it's never outright stated exactly what they are), this will probably be the fate of the PC and whoever they end up with. (It happens between the other townspeople, too.)
- Kappa: One mystery has you befriending one.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: Some of your classmates actually look like they could be human, just with Impossibly Cool Clothes. Some of them are definitely animals, though.
- Mad Libs Dialogue: Text-based, but still essentially the same idea. It's a bit imperfect, too, leading to your townpeople occasionally spouting gibberish like "I heard that Troper and Freya a hero."
- Mook Bouncer: The ghosts in the Haunted House.
- My Local: Limelight. Although they mostly serve juice.
- Princesses Prefer Pink: A variant, as the "Princess" themed furniture is all pink.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Most of the overworld music riffs on classical pieces, such as "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies," "Beautiful Dreamer," and others. Most of the original compositions are available as music for you to play in your room or on an instrument... but there's a lot of those.
- Relationship Values: You can get both "best friends" as well as a "boyfriend/girlfriend," though some contexts will treat both best friends and boyfriends/girlfriends the same way.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Kesaranpasaran, a pink puffball creature found only in Mystery Time.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: And you can talk to him! He seems disgruntled, and he has an Evil Laugh.
- Stalking Mission: The Ogre's minigame requires you to catch him without being seen yourself.
- Stock Underwear: Captain Dot has the "polkadotted boxers" version.
- Talk to Everyone: You actually get a reward if you talk to everyone, every day, for a set number of days.
- The Wiki Rule: It has one
- Video Game Caring Potential: It's hard not to dote on some of the classmates. And they can dote on you back, too!
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Shock 'em, embarrass 'em, hit them with giant metal basins from god knows where, you can do it all!
- Virtual Paper Doll: Different hairstyles, accessories, hats, shirts, pants, skirts, coats, and dresses are all available.
- X Meets Y: The game is frequently described as Animal Crossing meets Harry Potter.
- What the Hell, Player?: Not only does it get on you for resetting, if you use certain spells (such as the "lightning" spell) outside of the contexts they're supposed to be used in (in that case, punishing people who use mischevious spells on you), you get in trouble.
- In a hilarious subversion, the PRINCIPAL of the boarding school you're attending will actually award you for using "prank" style magic (lightning, farts) 100 times in the same way he awards academic achievements. Paraphrased:
Here is your reward. NOW DON'T DO IT AGAIN. |
- Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?: Shade's sidequest. "Hello. I am a former Evil Overlord who was imprisoned here by a good wizard! But, uh, I wanna be good now, so please help resurrect me!" ...Rrrrright. (And you can do it more than once.)